Americas

Wilderness scientists practice survival skills and living off the land in the forests on Lake Champlain, Vermont, including the complete skinning of a bobcat with a knife made from a piece of obsidian rock. The bobcat had been struck and killed by traffic on the nearby highway.

The convenience store clerk studies my American friend guessing gum flavors in their Chinese packages. She waves me over, “Hello. Convince me of something. Convince me why it’s worth going to America, when I can find everything here in Shanghai.” I say, “In America, you can live life going entire days without seeing another person.” ...

Learn to love a thing together and become connected by something timeless. “…written polyphonically, meaning that the characters, places, and themes that thread their way through its pages might reappear several times, in different years and contexts.” -Ryszard Kapuscinski (Summer dreams, Riverside Park)

“You don’t have a TV? You must be an artist or something. People who don’t have TV’s are very interesting people. They gotta be! They can’t rely on their TV to make their life interesting. They are inherently interesting.” -Lynette, operator #1871, Time Warner Cable Customer Service “Like dew on the tip of a leaf..” ...

How can we measure the length of a life? “So let us look upon that clock on the wall, not as measuring minutes, but rather heartbeats of the creature watching it. It turns out that all animals live for roughly a billion heartbeats.” -John Lienhard (Leica yawns, Bushwick)

“Just poured a cup of black tea with honey. It’s so cold the honey hardly ran out of the bottle and the tea is some kind of free organic promotion. The package said that ‘Each cup tells a thousand stories’. Who the hell comes up with these stupid things? Everyone knows a cup of tea ...

A traffic conductor strides into oncoming traffic. Two unmarked cars blow past him and fishtail stop, dramatically forming a barrier. In the same fluid momentum, one car door swings open and a man hits the ground sprinting. Mid-stride he intercepts a flying rubber cable hurtled halfway down the block by someone appeared on the curbside. ...

Half past dawn. An Upper West Side mom pulling a pink-leashed Yorkie and pushing a stroller-saddled toddler approaches me on the curb. Suddenly the dog darts across the sidewalk, a flash of hot pink turns tripwire and I stumble just as toddler begins yodeling. Mom shouts, “TINA!” and it was impossible to tell whether Tina ...

Mobile Phone Transcript: pc: I’m out of the subway! Which way do I walk? tk: Do you see this plane flying overhead? pc: No, but I can hear it. tk: Wait for the plane to fly overhead. <plane flies overhead> pc: OK I see it. tk: Walk in the opposite direction the plane’s going until ...

One autumn night in upstate New York, we all made a fire and discussed superpowers. “Can I tell you something I have never told anyone?” asked the fire-tender, “I was very young at the time. When I shook my head, my ears would ring a little, and I believed this was the start of becoming ...

Flight home was made possible by my dear sister who, upon being abruptly shaken from peaceful Saturday morning slumber, raced from the upper west side to JFK to deliver the entire contents of my forgotten wallet.Born Year of the Industrious Ox, meet Born Year of the Careless Pig. “Moo may represent an idea, but only ...

I have been informed that it is still football season. Census strategy by Joubert, taxi driver, Coconut Grove, FL: “You can find out just how many New Yorkers live in Miami when the Dolphins play the Jets.” “…Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels…” -Tennyson (Roanoke, VA)

Joined the proudest queue of strangers and neighbors at dawn today. “Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.” -EB White (125 West 109th St)

A day like any other, but a city night through rose-colored glasses. “I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.” -Henry David Thoreau (Fifth Ave after dark)

We saw a thunderstorm at a distance. They were dark storm clouds like a herd on the range, overtaking blue pastures of hazy summer skies. Then glass noodle rain dangling in mid-air, darkened by buffalo clouds, backlit by sunlight sparkle. I think you might have loved to see. (somewhere over the Mid-Southwest)